Ahead of the iPhone 5s’s launch later this week, Apple has put up a notice for developers to start submitting 64-bit compatible App Store apps. One of the iPhone 5s’s marquee features is a new 64-bit A7 processor that improves gaming and speed performance across the system and apps. Apple’s notice to developers:
Notably, it appears that 64-bit apps will (currently) need to be separate applications from those that are 32-bit and iOS 6 compatible. However, Apple says that next month, changes will be made to allow for a universal apps that run on both iOS 6 and iOS 7, regardless of the supported (32 bit or 64 bit) architecture. We reported that Apple is already working on iOS 7.1, so perhaps the changes will appear in that update.
Last week, we noted that Apple had provided developers with a transition guide for porting apps over to the 64-bit architecture. At the September 10 iPhone event, Epic Games noted that it took them two hours to convert their 32-bit Infinity Blade game over to 64-bit.
Update: The message to developers has been pulled by Apple.
